JRD Tata to Vijay Mallya: The Story of India's Airlines Business
Insights into Indian aviation, past and present
In this episode, author and journalist Puja Mehra speaks to senior aviation journalist Ashwini Phadnis and former Senior Deputy Editor at Business Line (aka The Hindu Business Line) about the long and chequered history of India’s civil aviation sector—from the post-Independence days of Air India under JRD Tata to the airline’s recent crash under Tata Group ownership. They trace how government policy, corporate decision-making, and regulatory uncertainty shaped the rise and fall of airlines like Jet Airways, Kingfisher, Air Deccan and Air Sahara. Ashwini draws on decades of reporting to unpack the behind-the-scenes politics, failed mergers, and missed opportunities that brought down some of India’s best-loved carriers. He also reflects on what made Indigo a standout success—and what Air India must fix if it is to rebuild trust. Tune in for insights into Indian aviation, past and present.
NOTE: This transcript is done by a machine. Human eyes have gone through the script but there might still be errors in some of the text, so please refer to the audio in case you need to clarify any part. If you want to get in touch regarding any feedback, you can drop us a message on [email protected].
—
TRANSCRIPT
Puja Mehra: Ash, hi, thank you so much for coming to the show. You've covered Indian aviation, especially airlines for so many years. I remember that when I first joined the profession in the summer of the year 2000, you were senior at that time, you know, when I was almost immediately assigned the aviation beat.
And those are such exciting times. Within days of my joining Burke, the Vajpayee government announced their decision to privatise Air India. And you know, when we used to wait for cabinet briefings outside Seven RCR about Air India disinvestment, and we started talking about Air India right then.
But I'm kind of getting ahead of myself, you know, I want to start this podcast conversation with you right from the time Air India and Indian aviation was born. So thank you for joining the show. And you know, let's start at the beginning, please take us through the story and history of Indian aviation.
Ashwini Phadnis: This is a great month to start a podcast on Air India privatisation, because it was 77 years to this month, 8th of June 1948, that Mr. JRD Tata first took off on Air India limited Constellation L749 aircraft from Bombay, and it was then called Enroute Cairo, Enroute Geneva, and finally reached its destination in London. People at that time thought that Mr. JRD Tata was completely out of his mind, because there were established players on this route already. And who in their right mind would want to start flying with an airline, which is coming from a country which is just about got independence.
But Mr. Tata stuck to his guns and launched Air India limited. Air India's flight came 24 years after Impedia Airways, which is the precursor of British Airways, launched a survey route crewing flight to India, which took off from London on 10th of November 1924, and finished its trip to India on March 17, the following year. If you thought that Mr. JRD Tata's Air India flight to London was long two days, a day and a half. The flight from London first landed in Athens, then Crete, Alexandria, Cairo, Gaza, Baghdad, Basra, Bushra, Karachi, which is part of India at that time, Jodhpur, before finally reaching Delhi. But Mr. JRD Tata pursued his dreams and created what was then to become a world class airline. And how Mr. JRD Tata did that was by always, always, always seeking the best. He realised that India was a poor country, it had just become independent. So for him, if it was Air India, it always had to be the best. So the offices of Air India abroad, at that time, Air India was only flying abroad.
Offices of Air India abroad were creating a mini India. And that is how Mr. JRD Tata also became a patron of Indian art, culture, clocks, and other things like clothes and everything else. And if we move down a little, come to the 70s, Mr. JRD Tata is still very much controlling Air India. In 1954, we've just become independent in 1947, the government of Jawaharlal Nehru decided that private sector and profit is a bad thing. So they decided to privatise Air India Limited, and all the six to seven airlines that were there into Indian Airlines Corporation, which was to fly only domestic, while Air India Limited was to fly international. And Prime Minister Nehru allowed Mr. JRD Tata to continue as chairman of Air India, even though it had been nationalised. Mr. Tata didn't rest on his laurels. By the 1970s, Air India became the first airline in Asia to have an all jet aircraft fleet. Now that's some achievement.
It's hardly 30 years since independence. And you have this airline, which is having an all jet fleet. And that is the first airline in Asia to do this.
He also focused a lot on services, so much so that Singapore Airlines, which now has a stake of about 25% in Air India, which is owned by the Tatas, sent their cabin crew to India to Mr. JRD's Air India to learn how to take care of the passengers. I'll just sum it up by saying two things, which is a testament of how good Air India was under Mr. Tata. Mr. Tim Clark, who is the current global CEO of Emirates Airlines of Dubai, he was a small child at that time. His parents, if I'm not mistaken, were based in Indonesia. And he would fly the child from London to Indonesia on Air India. And he fondly even now recalls how the Air India air hostesses would take care of him like a baby, offer him cold drinks, chocolates, ice cream, and really, really, really, really pamper him.
The second incident involves the Global Corporate Communications head of Star Alliance, an alliance of which Air India is a part, a global airline alliance. The Star Alliance Corporate Communications head was in 1985, working with Lufthansa. He got a posting with Lufthansa in London.
His parents were still in Frankfurt and they were wanting to come down and spend Christmas with him and his family in London. The parents decided at the last minute, the Corporate Communications head of Star Alliance, who was then with Lufthansa, decided to book Air India because that was the only airline that was available. And he was at the gate to receive his parents when they got off the flight from Air India, expecting to be thoroughly blown up that what kind of a lousy airline have you put us on?
And his parents came out beaming, saying, God, what service, what food? Why can't Lufthansa be like that? Now, that is the glory of the airline that Mr. J. R. D. Carter said.
First flight 1948, come to 1985, you are still there. The decline of Air India starts towards late 80s, early 90s. Till then, they were recruiting MBAs, graduates, proper people who knew what aviation was all about, had a passion about aviation.
After that, they started recruiting people from other public sector undertaking. So, these people were attuned to a very different mindset. And eventually, the downslide of Air India began.
Puja, you mentioned how you had started aviation when Vajpayee tried to privatise Air India. There were several attempts to privatise Air India. And it was only Prime Minister Modi who eventually managed to privatise Air India, but not before the government had pumped in tens of thousands of crores into Air India to try and revive it.
They had given them new aircraft, purchased by a sovereign guarantee. And yet, all that they got in return, the government got in return for providing tens of thousands of crores as equity to Air India was losses, losses, and more losses. So, Prime Minister Modi decided that now no more of government funding is going to go in towards Air India.
The first attempt of Prime Minister Modi to try and privatise Air India failed. The government had at that time retained a minority shareholding. The private sector was not that keen to run an airline with the government.
The second time around, when Mr. Modi came back, the terms and conditions kept getting changed. We can argue about that. And eventually, it was decided that the buyer can decide how much debt of the approximately 70,000 crores worth of debt that Air India had at that time should be taken on.
That's literally like saying, I want to sell my house and I will sell it to Puja at whatever price she's willing to offer me.
Puja Mehra: In fact, the government even after having sweetened the deal over several rounds, every time they used to keep coming back with better and better terms for the Tatas to pick up stake and for the deal to proceed. Even after all of that, I think they got a very good deal because Air India was literally burning a big hole in the government's coffers. But one of the reasons, Ash, I think one of the problems that Air India was facing was also the kind of competition it began to face from other Indian airlines that started coming up around the 90s, I think.
So, do you also want to tell us the story of how the rest of the Indian airline market started getting developed, where several airlines were launched, not many survived. And that's also part of the explanation of why Indian aviation sector today is the way it is.
Ashwini Phadnis: Yeah. So, Puja, you're talking about the repeal of the Air Corporation Act in 1994, which allowed the re-entry of private sector into civil aviation in India. The government stumbled at that time as well, because initially when the act was repealed, they were allowed to have the status of an air taxi operator.
So, they were not allowed to publish timetables, they had set fares, and a lot of people, East-West, Damania, Modi Luft, they fell by the wayside. It was only in 1993-94 that Mr. Naresh Goyal came up with jet airways. And the initial reason for his success was that while everybody else was in a hurry to launch, and they launched their operation largely with the Boeing 737-200-300 series.
There's nothing unsafe about these aircraft, but they were fuel guzzlers. So, the operations were not viable. Mr. Goyal waited till the 737-400, which was a more fuel-efficient aircraft, had a larger fuselage, came in and then launched. Initially, he was successful because the only other competition was Air Sahara, which was still depending on leased capacity while Jet Airways was buying the newer aircraft. The real takeoff of the sector actually came in 2003 when Captain Gopinath launched Air Deccal. That was a low-cost airline and revolutionised the Indian aviation market because he started giving a one-rupee fare.
Basic fare was one rupee, but the traveller had to pay the taxes of the government and everything else. But even then, it allowed the common man to have the aspirations of actually taking to the skies, which till then was something that was related to those who are affluent, well-off, and have money. So, 2003 actually becomes the benchmark for what we are seeing right now, which is the advent of low-cost flying.
Now, if you look at it in the domestic market, Indigo, which is primarily a low-cost airline, has an over 60% market share. They came to the market in 2006 with one aircraft. Now, in 16-17 years, Indigo has managed to fly 100 million passengers a year, joining a club that includes the types of Lufthansa, United, and Global Airlines.
And why this is such a special event is because the other airlines were all created as a huge airline through either mergers or acquisitions. Indigo, on the basis of its own strength, on the basis of its network, on the basis of how big the Indian market is, how huge the country is, managed to fly 100 million passengers in a year or 10 crores in a year, and it's still going strong. Post-94, there were a number of other airlines.
The other benchmark that one should remember is 2007. Three things happened in 2007. Air India, Indian Airlines were merged into Air India.
This is Air India still under the government. Jet Airways bought out Air Sahara, and Kingfisher bought out Air Deccan. So in that sense, one can say consolidation was taking place in the Indian market.
But as we know now, first Kingfisher, then Jet Airways ceased operation, and now we are in a situation where it's only Air India and Indigo, which are forming a duopoly in the Indian market, which bring its own issues to the table.
Puja Mehra: Yes, I will come to that. Let me also first request you to explain to us a bit about, you know, the whole success of Jet Airways, like you said, was because of the choice of aircraft. But I also thought that Mr. Goyal focused a great deal on the quality of the product. I thought Jet Airways had a great service. And the success of Jet Airways was also about notorious crony capitalism in India. And we've heard the story from Mr. Arun Shourie himself, when he explained why he could not privatise Air India. And the role Mr. Goyal played, he said this publicly. And over the years, we've heard from pilots about how Jet Airways always managed to get the best, you know, flying altitude where they would save fuel, and a whole lot of other things that you managed to get in the Indian business operating system, by having the right connections in the right places. And then let's come to, you know, how the challenger Air Deccan came up, and how then, you know, the aviation sector unravelled in the year 2000.
Ashwini Phadnis: So, you raise a very valid point. I can give you an example of how well connected Mr. Naresh Goyal was. If you remember, the World Economic Forum has an India Summit in Davos every year.
And there's a mini India pavilion. At one of these events, Naresh Goyal decided to throw a party. And the party was supposed to start at seven.
And the Civil Aviation Minister was supposed to come. All the diplomats who were there were there. The Civil Aviation Minister didn't land up till 8, 8.30. And in these kind of parties, it's normally said that, look, it has to start and finish at the time which has been given. So, these diplomats went up to Mr. Goyal and said, look, wrap up the entire thing, the minister has not come. Mr. Goyal refused to wrap up the party and told the diplomat who told me this, that minister kya uska baap pe aayega. And sure enough, by about 9.15, 9.30, the minister landed up. And this suave gentleman had the entire global investor community eating out of his palm. And the party went on till past midnight. So, what you're saying and what Mr. Arun Shourie said is publicly known.
Puja Mehra: Do you want to remind listeners of the story that Mr. Arun Shourie narrated of how Mr. Goyal scuttled Air India privatisation when he was trying it?
Ashwini Phadnis: See, Mr. Shourie said that. But then he would be on record, off record, on record, off record. There's only a smoking gun pointing towards Mr. Goyal. Because there's nothing which says, I mean, you can give a lot of instances, like just before Chet went down, they managed to get investments from Etihad. And it is said that the Etihad investment was linked to the exchange of bilaterals, which is providing more air seats to Etihad to operate into and out of India. While that is correct.
And I can give you stories about how people in the government did not give permission to the official who was supposed to be flying to sign the deal. But eventually, the minister overruled the officials. And the official went and signed the deal.
If you write all this, which Mr. Bhargava, Jitendra Bhargava, tried to write in his book, then you're immediately banned, as happened with the book of Mr. Bhargava. So one has to be very careful. See, somebody of the nature and stature of Mr. Arun Shourie can very well make these statements, because he has a stature. But we as journalists have to be very careful about what we say and what we don't say, because we are up for libel. So I get your point that yes, in the corridors of power, there were lots of rumours that Mr. Bhuvan was controlling policy, and he was getting things done. But then, eventually, karma caught up with him.
And all his so-called friends in high places could not help him. And in April 2019, JIT temporarily ceased operations and is yet to start operations. So the temporary closure has been going on for about six years.
So that airline is as good as dead. So I mean, that's a reason why it's okay for people like the stature of Mr. Arun Shourie to go around saying things like this. But for journalists, because if you notice, even the writing of journalists at that time, was very circumspect.
Everybody is pointing a smoking gun towards Mr. Goyal. But nobody actually said anything to Mr. Goyal.
Puja Mehra: Yeah, in fact, I recall we all only quoted Mr. Shourie and what made it easier was that he was speaking on the floor of Parliament. So we were quoting Parliament proceedings. But I take your point.
I take your point. And let's now discuss the events of 2007, where Kingfisher bought Air Deccan and Air India-Indian Airlines merger took place, which many people fault for the decline, the rapid steep decline of Air India. But a lot of people disagree with that also.
So what do you think of it?
Ashwini Phadnis: See, it was inevitable. I mean, look, Air India and Indian Airlines were eating into each other's shells. Because if you remember, at that time, Air India would have the domestic leg of an international flight.
And these were flights which would come in from abroad. And they would invariably land in Delhi. And their base was to be either Chennai or Bangalore or Bombay.
So to get more passengers on board, they were offering a 25% discount on these flights. Now, that was money that easily gone into the coffers of Air India. So on paper, it made a lot of sense.
But as we are figuring out now with Air India under the TATAs, which is basically four airlines coming together, a merger never works, a consolidation never works. There are different HR practises, different work ethic. In fact, it was Mr. Arvind Jadhav, who was the CMDA of Air India, the United Air India, which is Indian Airlines and Air India put together, which got the brand name Air India, who flanked the financial difficulties that Air India was under. And he went before a parliamentary panel, speaking about the merger. He said, before the merger, I was in a lot of trouble because if I wanted to operate Delhi-Singapore, there were 300 passengers, but I only had A320, which would carry 160 or 80 passengers. Now, we are in a situation where we have bigger aircraft which should operate, but the crew keep fighting among each other saying, why shouldn't be the Air India crew which should be operating it?
Why can't be the Indian Airlines crew should be operating it? And then he spoke about the fact that a small little very silly thing, actually, if you look at it one way, Indian Airlines lunch break is between one and two. At that time, online travel agents weren't that big.
So, one had to go to a physical booking office to book an airline ticket. So, if you went between one and two to an Indian airline office, you can barely find it shut. Air India never shut.
They would be working on shifts. And anytime it was time for a lunch break or a tea break, somebody else would come and take over. Now, these are minor glitches, which eventually turn into big problems.
And this is what Air India, which the Tata has bought right now, is facing.
Puja Mehra: Right, right. And what about the story about Sahara decking Kingfisher?
Ashwini Phadnis: Kingfisher, Mr Vijay Mallya, who was a promoter of Kingfisher, has been on record several times saying that he was keen to fly the Kingfisher Colours abroad. And at that time, there was a rule which has since been done away with, that you have to have five years experience of operating in India and a fleet of 20 aircraft. This is a rule that was framed by Mr Praful Patel's Ministry of Civil Aviation.
Many say that this rule was unfair, but his explanation to this was, can you have an airline which starts operations today, go and crash or have an incident abroad, what message are you sending out? Let them have five years of experience of flying in India, let them get the depth in India, and then we'll send them abroad. The current Modi government came in and did away with that rule.
So, Kingfisher hadn't completed five years, and it had ordered the wide-body aircraft, including the Airbus A380, which is the largest commercial jet flying in the skies right now, and it was desperate to go abroad. Air Deccan, on the other hand, did have the flying rights to go abroad. So, Mr Mallya assumed, rightly so, that if he bought out Air Deccan, he'd start flying abroad.
What he didn't foresee was that flying abroad has its own impediments, because then you need more crew, you need more landing slots, which is a place to put the aircraft down in the airport abroad, you must have bilateral rights, which is the rights from India's side, and the acceptance of the other country, to fly to that country, and he launched initially. I think the first flight was with an Airbus A330 Banglore, which is his home base to London. Some of these flights operated, but eventually, he was under such a lot of debt that he couldn't sustain it.
So, the entire buyout proved to be a miserable failure. And eventually, it led to the closure of the airline itself. As far as Jet and Air Sahara is concerned, that is a buyout that made absolutely no sense.
Jet was already an established player. It had its own fleet. Air Sahara at that time was depending on leased aircraft.
So, the rumour mill has it that since the government didn't want an airline to go down under its watch, they leaned on Mr. Nareshwar to buy out Air Sahara, rather than see an airline going down. This has never been proven, but it's one of those whispers in the corridor, which everybody in the sector at that time knew. And this is an interesting aside, which was told to me by the merchant banker who concluded the deal, that the initial talks for the buyout was conducted when Mr. Amitabh Bachchan, the superstar, was in hospital because Mr. Bachchan was said to be very close with the Air Sahara owner. And Mr. Koel always had a fascination for Bollywood. Now, this is what was told to me. I assume that that was correct, because it was told to me by somebody who was connected with the deal.
But why the deal was actually concluded remains a mystery till date.
Puja Mehra: So, on the whole, Ash, what is your impression, the story of these several airlines that offered good service, just like JTWs, even Kingfisher actually was a good airline. And I don't know, probably I'm biassed. Very often, I would get upgraded flying Kingfisher.
I don't know how that happened. But I guess just some random thing. But they were good products.
Was it the policy environment? Was it the corporate decision making, the quality of corporate decision making? Or was it something else that wasn't conducive to their success at that point in time?
And then let's come to, you know, what is it that Indigo has got right? And what is Airiga going to do with the Tatas now that, you know, they're in such a difficult phase?
Ashwini Phadnis: Okay, so the simple and the short answer to that, as to what went wrong, and I won't go into policy. But both Kingfisher and Jet forgot to start looking at their bottom line. They thought that they had endless bit of money.
And they could just keep spending, keep spending, keep spending, irrespective of how big the losses were. And eventually, losses just mounted to such a level that it became unsustainable. They could not pay off their debtors.
You probably remember this. Mr. Agarwal was chairman, VP Agarwal was chairman, Airport Authority of India. Debtors, lessors basically, were chasing Kingfisher to take the aircraft back.
And Airport Authority of India realised that if these aircraft left the Indian shores, then whatever the outstanding were against Kingfisher to Airport Authority of India would be as good as loss. So, Airport Authority decided that, okay, Puja is a lesser and she has turboprop aircraft, which is leased to Kingfisher. She can deposit $750,000 with Airport Authority and they were given no objection certificate for the aircraft to be taken out.
And for a narrowbody 320, it was $1.5 million. Some lessors were so desperate that they paid up. Others went to court and the court came down heavily and they had to do with that policy.
So, just not focussing on your bottom line at all, and expanding and hoping that the money for the expansion could take care of the bad debts that you had. You mentioned Indigo. Now, Indigo was a very interesting case because if you remember the statement Airbus issued at the time Indigo launched, it said something on the line that this is the first time in their history that they have taken an order of 100 aircraft from a startup airline.
Now, the story behind that is that the promoter, the initial promoters of Indigo were Mr. Rakesh Rangwal, a veteran of the US aviation industry, and Mr. Rahul Bhatia, a veteran GSA. This was told to me by people who were involved with the deal that once Airbus realised that Mr. Rangwal, who had been involved purchasing about 2,500 aircraft from both Airbus and Boeing, was part of the deal. Airbus was very clear that this deal has to come to us.
So, they did away with all their earlier norms and said, okay, if Rangwal is backing this deal, there's going to be something in it. And they went ahead and signed up a startup airline with 100 orders. If you remember, after that, all the exponential orders that have been there have been 100 or more, except for the 350, the white body, which has been about 70.
Now, as we know in aviation, most airlines go for a sale and lease back model in which they don't have to put up the entire cost of the aircraft. They will put up a token amount, and then a leasing company will take the aircraft on their books and Indigo will pay, say, $375,000 to $425,000 a month, rather than paying $150, $200 million for buying an Airbus aircraft. This helps them bring down their cost drastically, because they can easily recover.
As I mentioned, carrying 100 million passengers in the Indian market in a year, they will surely recover their costs, and they will easily be able to pay back all the money that they had to the lesser. So, that has been one of the biggest success stories for Indigo, that they had a very strong launchpad, which Jet had initially. That's why in the first few years, they were reporting profits.
But eventually, they lost track of that. They couldn't decide whether they wanted to be a full service or a low cost, which is what they did when they bought Sahara, rebranded it Jetlite. And then passengers would get really angry because Jetlite didn't have a business class, Jet Airways did.
Now, Indigo has been consistent with this product till 2024, November, when they came up with Stretch. But then, Stretch is their, they don't call it business class, but it's their version of business class, which is just 12 seats or 56 seats, 12 on the narrow body Airbus A321, and 56 on the 787 that they lease from Norse. But then the passenger knows exactly what they're getting in for.
So, you want to travel for a comparatively lesser fare, take seven kilos handbag, which is provided free, don't take the meals, sit where they ask you to sit, and you're ready to fly at a lower fare. But you want the perks, pay a bit extra. You want more perks, pay a bit extra.
And that is the model of a low-cost airline, which Indigo, till 2004, stuck to, after starting in 2007.
Puja Mehra: And, you know, although some of these airlines, especially Deccan and all, have not survived, but I think their biggest contribution is that they helped everybody see the potential of the Indian aviation market, which is, many people say, the most exciting, most fast-growing market in the world. And what has happened is that a whole section of society no longer travels by train. They used to travel by train, but they've given up on trains completely, and they now only fly.
Whereas earlier, like you said earlier in the show, flying was more of a luxury. It was not for everybody. And somebody had to get it right, Indigo's got it right.
But what happens to Air India now, now that we have a duopoly situation, and we have a well-entrenched, very successful competitor for Air India. The Tatas are veterans, of course. They have all the resources to turn around Air India.
What are the prospects? What do you think?
Ashwini Phadnis: So, I think the best way of summing up the situation the Tatas find themselves in is to come up with what is said globally about an airline, that if you're a billionaire and want to become a millionaire, start an airline. And if you see the Tatas, that is where they seem to be headed right now, because they haven't got their house in order. I mean, the unfortunate incidents of June 12th clearly show that things are not right, and they're not in place.
This aircraft, the 787, has been flying since 2011. That's almost 14 years. And this is the first crash that this aircraft has seen.
It's been grounded earlier. I'm not saying it's not been grounded, but it's the first crash that this aircraft has seen. And if you step back to February, March this year, Air India faced a lot of problems on their long-haul flights, because there were stories in the Indian media about how aircraft had to turn back coming in from the United States and Canada, because the toilets had got clogged, and one or two toilets, but more than six, more than 10.
And it was just not tenable to operate these aircraft any longer. So they had to turn back and go back to the place where they started from in the U.S. and Canada. Now, this should be very clearly showing the Air India management that things are not right.
How long can they just keep blaming the fact that they've got an old fleet, they've got problems with vendors, because COVID and the supply chain has got badly affected. At the end of the day, you need to step up and say that, yes, I'm not saying about the crash, but I'm saying generally. Crash, I don't want to get into right now, because there are way too many hypotheses of what happened, what did not happen.
Let the black box, which is where all the data of the flight will be there, let that come out. But there are enough pointers that Air India is not being run in the manner that a professionally run airline should be run. Just by ordering aircraft, new aircraft, brand new aircraft, you don't run a successful airline.
You do need manpower, you do need manpower, which knows about aviation to run an airline. Yes, you need finance people to look out finances, but you also need people who understand broad flight duty time limitations, or FTDL for crew. What are the intricacies that are involved in night flying?
What are the sets of pilots and crew that you need, cabin crew that you need to have? How many technicians you need to have? How many spares you need to have?
What kind of in-flight you should provide? What should be the airport experience? And things like that.
Now, the Tata's can turn around and say that we've not even been in this business for three years. Yes, but then you knew that you were getting Air India. Shouldn't you have had all this planned out?
I'm not blaming them for the crash. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not pointing fingers on anybody on the crash.
But why are you selling business class and first class seats if they're not serviceable?
Puja Mehra: But Ash, they were running Vistara, which I thought, you know, is a very, very good airline.
Ashwini Phadnis: Again, they were running Vistara, which is a very good airline. But if you notice, that was Singapore Airlines, which was running Vistara. The CEO was from Singapore Airlines, Fitech Lesney, and then an Indian Vinod Kandan.
And now they've decided that Vistara, which had come to be known as a world class airline in India, is going to get submerged with the Air India brand. So, I mean, to me as a layman, as a person who used to fly premium economy Vistara and look forward to the flight, has now shifted loyalty to Indigo. Because there are no expectations when you board an Indigo aircraft.
And if you get something extra, it's a plus. When you board Air India, a very senior editor of the Indian newspaper has written about how he was supposed to be in premium economy. And at the last minute, he was told he would be downgraded to economy.
Now, this is just not on. I mean, you are running a so-called full service airline. How do you explain things like this happening?
It can happen once, it can happen twice. But if it's happened repeatedly, then there's something wrong with your system.
Puja Mehra: They can't rope in staff from Singapore Airlines to help out with Air India. Singapore Airlines is a part of the consortium that bought Air India?
Ashwini Phadnis: Yeah, Singapore Airlines currently has, I think, 25.1% in the current Air India. See, the Indian law says that a foreign airline can have up to 49%. Because otherwise, anything beyond 50 means that it's not an Indian flag carrier.
Because then substantial control and ownership goes to the other country or can go to the other country. Substantial ownership and effective control is so easy. Now, the thing is that in Air India, they've got a few people from Singapore Airlines.
But it's still largely people from Air India is basically Air India Express, Vistara, and AirAsia. So, that's why in the beginning, I said, a merger is a very difficult thing to happen. This is not a merger, this is a amalgamation or whatever the word you want to use.
And we're seeing that play out right now.
Puja Mehra: Right. So, it looks like a very difficult flight path ahead, unless they get down to resolving these problems.
Ashwini Phadnis: Basically, what they need to do is start putting their house together, call it a spade a spade. They're managed in some routes, like you take Delhi-London, Delhi-New York, or India-London, India-New York. They have the Airbus A350.
People just can't stop singing praises of those aircraft. But if I remember, there are only six of them in the fleet right now. And you have a fleet that's over a hundred aircraft.
So, six is a very minuscule amount. Now, to talk about just the good things, and not talking about the fact that, yes, we have some way to go before we improve. I don't think it's being fair to the public.
Puja Mehra: No, absolutely right. And, you know, especially when it comes to the Tata's expectations, always even higher. Perhaps because of the past, the JRD Tata and how Air India was at that time.
Everybody has this tendency to sort of look back and talk about the glorious days.
Ashwini Phadnis: Sorry, I mean, I would tend to disagree because the people who remember JRD days are pretty much gone. We're talking about the first flight of Air India 77 years ago.
Puja Mehra: I didn't mean in terms of actual flyers, but I mean in terms of, you know, how everybody talks about how great Air India was at that point in time. And a lot of people assume that, you know, once Air India is back in the hands of the Tata's, overnight it'll go back to being like how they've read about it from that time.
Ashwini Phadnis: That's my point, that you have to be humble enough and accept that, yes, we are trying, we're making a huge effort. Please bear with us. And I haven't seen even one statement showing any humility from Air India, I'm not even saying Tata's.
To me, just the very fact that Air India says, we are trying, please don't abandon us, will be enough to assuage my feelings. And I'll go back to them. If you're going to be high and mighty and say, okay, you want to fly us, fine.
If you don't, no problem. We've got others who want to fly us.
Puja Mehra: Passengers have become sort of accustomed to good service. And if not good service, at least low cost.
Ashwini Phadnis: It's Vistara standards. Now you decided to merge Vistara into Air India. I mean, I didn't understand that.
Puja Mehra: Sad to see Vistara sort of lose its touch with Air India.
Ashwini Phadnis: Very disappointed. Very disappointed. And in that sense, the crash should be really a wake-up call.
Puja Mehra: I suspect it would be. I mean, there's no way it cannot not be.
Ashwini Phadnis: Look, whatever I've seen of Air India in the last two years, I hope it's not just an internal wake-up call with no communication with the passengers. I mean, I don't know, have you seen the message that the CEO of Qatar Airways sent out to his passengers today? Oh, it's an amazing thing.
Just give me a minute. I have it right here. See, Qatar got caught up in this fight between Israel and Iran.
So their airspace was blocked. And when their airspace got blocked, all the other airspaces got blocked. They had 99 zero aircraft in the air at that time, and approximately 20,000 passengers at their airport.
They managed to get 4,600 customers with 3,200 rooms across Doha. And each of these 4,600 passengers were given boarding cards before they left the airport terminal. They were provided 35,000 meals, water, and trauma kits.
All the diverted passengers averaged over 20,000, and they were cleared to their destination in 24 hours. What has Air India done about closure? They've just given a press statement.
They might have sent something on their social media saying that as progressively flights open up, we tell you about it. Thank you so much. You're doing me a great favour by saying that, Yeah.
Puja Mehra: It's a competitive world out there. For the passenger, it's so easy to compare and see what Qatar is doing, what the standard is, and what Air India is doing. And that should help them know the benchmark.
Ashwini Phadnis: Literally, literally, literally.
Puja Mehra: Right. On that note, thank you. Thank you, Ash.
Thank you so much for coming on the show and discussing Air India and Jet and then Deccan and all the Indian aviation sector, the whole journey from immediately after independence till now.
Ashwini Phadnis: Thank you, Puja. Take care.
